A perfect panic prevailed. The banks stopped payment, the beacons were fired, and once more every eye was turned on the Duke of Albemarle. He was hard at work preparing to meet a descent on the threatened counties. Two days before, on the first alarm, Lord Oxford had been sent off to mobilise the militia in Essex, and Lord Middleton to do the same in Kent, while a bridge of boats was being got ready about Tilbury that the horse of either county might be rapidly moved to the support of the other. With the river he had nothing to do. It was under the Duke of York and the Admiralty, and Pett, one of the commissioners, was in special charge of Chatham and the Medway. At daybreak, however, on Monday morning the Dutch were seen at anchor at the Nore. A little later they began to move up the river, and at noon the King sent for Monk. In four hours he was on his way to Chatham with the Guards to save the fleet and dock-yard, and at his heels half the young bloods in London were trailing pikes. As a soldier the lord-general's name had never been so much as breathed upon, and in a burst of enthusiasm a rabble "of idle lords and gentlemen, with their pistols and fooleries," started to their feet to follow the pattern of soldiership, the old Captain-Lieutenant of "Vere's," their fathers' father-in-arms. By night he reached Gravesend. It was practically defenceless. The batteries were unarmed and unmanned, and he decided to halt the train of artillery that was following him at the weak point till further orders. There was time for little more. His rest was disturbed with the sound of a furious cannonade from the direction of Sheerness, and at daylight he hurried on to Chatham. Here, thanks to Monk's perfect organisation and his officers' high capacity, Lord Middleton was able to report the mobilisation of Kent complete, and the Duke to write off a letter to the King full of cheery confidence as to the result of any attempt of the Dutch to land. But that was the end; the rest of the news was too desperate to tell. Sheerness had fallen, and practically nothing had been done for the defence of Chatham. There was no ammunition, not a gun was mounted, the dock-yard hands had not been paid for months, and in desperation nearly the whole of them had deserted. In the face of stringent orders, the finest ships in the navy were still lying out unprotected in the tideway; most of the officials were away busily transporting their effects in the boats that had been provided for the defence of the fleet, and Pett was panic-stricken. The only obstacle to the enemy's attack was a chain which had been stretched across the river below Upnor, but not a gun had been planted for its protection. There was not even a gun-boat ready to prevent the Dutch removing it.